Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Children’s Hospital?

I recently tore through the first couple of seasons of Children’s Hospital on DVD, which I feel like I should acknowledge somehow. But despite enjoying it immensely and planning to work my way through the rest of the series eventually, I find that I don’t have a ton of meaningful things to say about the show. It’s right up my alley, because I enjoy well-done over-the-top satire and parody, and because the subject matter – medical dramas and their tropes – is something I’m reasonably familiar with, too. I used to watch a lot of ER back in the day. And Scrubs, too, which admittedly is a sitcom with its own inherent ridiculousness, but had moments where it took itself seriously enough to be a worthy target for lampooning (not to mention the fact that I quickly recognized they were actually filming Children’s Hospital at the same hospital where Scrubs was set).

The show did what it was supposed to do, which is make me laugh, and there’s not much more depth to plumb beyond that. This is especially true because a couple of seasons of Children’s Hospital really doesn’t comprise that much material. It started out as a web series and has since graduated (for lack of a better word) to airing as part of Adult Swim. Season One consists of about ten episodes which are each five minutes long, and the significantly more expansive Season Two is a dozen episodes, each eleven minutes long. Feel free to rein in any feelings of being impressed at my newfound ability to find time to watch tons of tv. I’m just focusing on shorter shows.

At any rate, I might as well venture into some of the peripheries while we’re all here:

- I watched all these mini-episodes on my own, which means my poor wife has been subjected to me frequently quoting and referencing them lately, utterly devoid of context. Somehow she has not felt the urge to murder me as a result (or, at least, has not succumbed to it. Yet!)

- Adult Swim was, of course, my boon latenight companion when the little guy was just an infant who slept all right in someone’s arms but not at all when laid down in a crib. I would take a shift starting around midnight sitting on the couch downstairs in our old townhouse with the little guy, while my wife got a couple uninterrupted hours sleep upstairs, and I would watch Robot Chicken and other such oddities. Clearly I am trying to catch up on Children’s Hospital in anticipation of the newest newborn due to arrive in the spring, so that I can be up-to-speed for that round of latenight basic cable marathons.

- Also I’m trying to tear through stuff in case we have to cancel Netflix when our third child is born, because seriously, these little entertainment conveniences are only going to get harder and harder to justify.